


The Guardian

by nightflower



Series: GoT/The Mandalorian [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Star Wars, Alternate Universe - The Mandalorian, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Ygritte is only in flashbacks, for The Mandalorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:27:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24826033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightflower/pseuds/nightflower
Summary: "But killing? I do not find the glory in it, nor the honor.""You're a bounty hunter." Daenerys says, incredulous. Her attention is fully on him, now, and not the sky. He likes the feeling, though perhaps not the way her eyebrows are climbing."Yes," Jon says, because it's true. Or it was true up until recently.There's a long silence as she mulls this over."I think you might be in the wrong profession," she says, finally.*Part 2 of a "The Mandalorian" AU.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen, past Jon snow/Ygritte - Relationship
Series: GoT/The Mandalorian [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627429
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58





	The Guardian

**Author's Note:**

> This can technically stand alone, but it will make more sense if you read the first part of the series. 
> 
> You don't need to be particularly familiar with The Mandalorian or Star Wars past the basics.
> 
> I am very sorry for covering Jon's face. The worldbuilding made me do it.

Jon stands on a balcony overlooking one of the many courtyards of the palace. This particular balcony, with it’s gilded railing and marble tile, isn’t high enough above the walls of the palace that he can see the colorful sprawl of Meereen. His view is limited to the other balconies, nearly all of them empty of residents or staff, and the courtyard below. Half the time this area is in shadow, as the pyramid looming beside the secondary palace complex blocks the sun at certain angles. Now, though, the sun beats down in all its relentless glory. Jon's silver armor is undoubtedly a gleaming eyesore against the pale stone of the palace walls, but most denizens of the palace are used to it by now. And any of the courtiers that object to the garb of the Mandalorian have long since learned that it’s best not to complain. 

Below, Rhaego is running as quickly as his tiny legs will take him, giggling with some of the other children who live in the palace. It was easy to pick Rheago out from the crowd, with his crown of silver curls. Laughter echoes up from the courtyard, though the game they’re playing is inscrutable. 

Unsullied guards stand below, near the doors to the courtyard. The tips of their spears glint in the sunlight. In truth, Jon is hardly needed as a bodyguard now, especially here in the heart of the palace. But he takes his job very seriously, and he is being paid handsomely for it.

When he hears footsteps behind him, Jon doesn't turn. He knows that it is Daenerys without looking. He knows the sound of her gait, the swish of fabric from her favored dresses. It’s his job to know these things, all the details of the people who come and go from this palace. At least that is what he tells himself.

She comes up beside him, leaning elegantly against the railing of the balcony. As always, the Queen of Meereen is radiant. Today she is wearing a crown, not just her braids, an understated circlet of gold. Purple silks are draped around her slim form, the shade matching her eyes perfectly.

The soft smile that turns up her lips when she gazes at her son makes Jon look away, feeling as if he's intruding on something private.

A distant mechanical grinding fills the air, and Jon looks up at the pyramid. One of the doors near the peak is opening up. By now he knows that the structure is a glorified hangar, home to many of the small crafts the Dothraki favor and Daenerys' own flagship. He watches as a bright red ship emerges from the pyramid and flies off over the city.

When Jon glances back at Daenerys, she's looking up at the sky with longing written all over her face.

"Do you fly, Your Grace?" he asks, before realizing what a foolish question that is. Of course she can fly - she has three ships all her own, and is famous for putting them to good use. She doesn't seem bothered by the question, thankfully.

"I don't have the time to fly as much as I used to, but yes."

"Do you miss it?"

"Yes... Sometimes I feel that I will never be as good at ruling as I am at flying. And, well," Daenerys sighs, "We all enjoy what we're good at, after all."

Before he can think about it, Jon blurts, "I don't."

Daenerys gives him a strange look. "What are you saying?"

Concealed by his helmet, Jon’s lips quirk into a bitter grin. He tilts his head toward her, his only outward movement. "I've found that I'm very good at killing. I don't enjoy it."

"Correct me if I'm wrong... But isn't that part of being Mandalorian?"

"Killing? It depends on who you ask." Jon is silent for a moment, mulling over his words. He looks up at the clear blue sky that Daenerys had been watching with so much yearning. "There is a certain satisfaction in taking a weapon and wielding it well. The pride in a skill perfected. And perhaps that is even worshipful. But killing? I do not find the glory in it, nor the honor."

"You're a bounty hunter." Daenerys says, incredulous. Her attention is fully on him, now, and not the sky. He likes the feeling, though perhaps not the way her eyebrows are climbing.

"Yes," he says, because it's true. Or it was true up until recently.

There's a long silence as she mulls this over.

"I think you might be in the wrong profession," she says, finally.

Jon snorts. "Maybe so."

It’s then that Rheago realizes that his mother is watching, and calls up to her, waving his little hands. He almost stumbles in his excitement, but one of the older boys catches him. Daenerys turns away from Jon to watch her son, and Jon is content to watch the two of them. Thinking back on the hesitant slip of a boy he’d found on a bounty, Jon can’t help but feel pride that he has allowed this to be so. That his actions have allowed the Queen of Meereen to smile like this. 

He finds, in himself, that he would be willing to do many things to see that smile. 

+++

He remembers this: The bitter wind of a winter world, so fierce that it cuts through his layers and leaves him chilled to the bone. He doesn't think he's ever felt cold like this, not even in the distant memories of his childhood. On Winterfell, the great stone walls of his family’s home had kept away the worst of the snow. Here, he knows for certain that if there were not thick layers of fabric between his skin and his armor, his beskar would be frozen to his skin. Nothing burns like the cold.

The sky is bright and blue above him, not a cloud in sight. Trees sway in the biting winds, which carry billowing columns of snow. The snowbanks rise as tall as sand dunes he’s seen on other worlds, and he trudges through them grudgingly. The blinking HUD in his helmet helps him pick out a path that has him only knee-deep in the snow. He’s glad of the sunshade in the helmet, too - Jon's own perception of his surroundings is next to useless, as the sun reflects mercilessly from the fields of snow. He curses himself for letting Jeor convince him this was a bounty worth taking. That catching a jumped-up pirate who made her home on a desolate ice world would somehow be easy.

There's a crunch in the snow. Before Jon even has an opportunity to clutch at the blaster in his belt, people wearing layers of thick furs melt from behind the sparse trees. There are blasters pointed at him, and he lifts his hands in surrender. He runs a mental calculation. He doesn't have whistling birds, not anymore, so there's no way he could take all five instantly - and no, there are seven, he can see their shadows in the trees now that he's looking more carefully. Three are standing close enough that the flamethrower in his vambrace could get them all at once, but he would have to trust that the rest were poor enough shots that they wouldn't aim for the gaps in his armor. He could draw his rifle and try both at once - the Amban rifle tended to have distracting effects...

Jon's hand twitches toward the strap of his rifle.

"Don't move, Mando," one of the watching people says. She has red hair, like a sunset on Queenscrown. Only a few strands of it fall out of her furred hat. Half her face is obscured by a mask, which includes a staticky voice modulator. Her eyes are covered by goggles. Everyone else is similarly garbed, in an attempt to fight the cold.

Her grip on the blaster is rock solid. Jon's HUD helpfully informs him of the potential trajectory of her bolt - she's aiming at the gap in his armor at the back of his knee.

"What're you doing here, Mando?"

"I'm..." Jon pauses. Admitting to hunting a bounty seems like a bad plan, although it's also the most believable answer. "I crashed. I'm... Lost."

The woman snorts, which emerges mostly as static. "Yeah, sure ya did Mando. Search 'im for a tracking fob."

Jon is suddenly intensely glad that he had left the fob on his ship - he’d only intended to scout the area where he’d landed. He doesn't protest as two of the shrouded warriors approach and roughly pat him down. They find another blaster and a knife, but not what they're looking for.

"Nothin' here, Ygritte."

Jon's eyes cut toward the red haired woman. Ygritte. That's her - his mark. He's careful not to move his head so his attention can't be noted. His helmet, opaque as it is, makes sure of that.

"Hmph," she says, "Well. Guess you can come with us, Mando. Sun will set soon, and we can see you on your way tomorrow... See what we can do about your ship, since you 'crashed.' Never let it be said that the Free Folk don't have hospitality."

With that, she neatly holsters her blaster and turns on her heel, somehow moving lightly over the snow without sinking into it.

"Right. You have my thanks," Jon says, grimacing. Now he had to figure out how the hell he was going to capture a warrior surrounded by her comrades without getting himself killed in the attempt.

+++

Just barely within the grounds of the palace are sets of lucious gardens. It's the height of privilege, Jon thinks, to have so much green on a desert world. But Daenerys didn't create these places, and she hadn't wanted to just let them die when she took Meereen from the masters - Missandei had told him as much when he’d asked. Instead, she shares them with her people, making the gardens open to the public.

Much to Jon's chagrin, the gardens are Rhaego's favorite place in the palace. He wonders if it's because he spent so much of his young life being shunted from kidnapper to hunter and back, shut away in a pram far more than could be healthy. The gardens are open and peaceful, the perfect place for a child to explore safely.

It's just that the gardens are the least safe place in the palace, save perhaps the receiving rooms. Of course the Unsullied guards are stationed everywhere, so only a fool would break the Queen's laws in the gardens. But there are many fools in the galaxy - Jon knows this intimately.

So when he's done breaking his fast in private and asks where the child is, he heaves a sigh when the answer is in the gardens.

He navigates the halls of the palace with an ease he wouldn't have imagined when he first arrived. The palace is a veritable maze, and full of secret passages besides. He doesn't bother with any of those, but Jon is soon slipping through a sliding door out into Rhaego's favorite garden.

The myriad of gardens were divided by high sandstone walls, all of them sizable in their own right. This particular one was notable because a pool of shallow water dominated the center. A fountain sent arcs of glittering water shooting upwards from the center. The blue tile along the bottom made the pool stand out vibrantly against the greenery around it and the red of the ever-present sands.

"Mando! Mando!"

Rhaego's high, reedy voice comes from behind a flowering tree. The child, silver-blond hair glinting in the sunlight, peeks out and waves a chubby fist excitedly. In the weeks since they had arrived on Meereen, the child had put on a healthy amount of weight. He positively glowed with joy.

Rhaego says something else, too, but Jon had only learned a smattering of Valyrian and no Dothraki at all, so it's all but meaningless to him.

Jon thumbs absently at one of his beskar vambraces as he strides across the lawn, offering a bemused greeting to the excited child. Daenerys is seated on a lounge chair beside the pool, with Missandei seated beside her. The two of them are bent over some documents, discussing them in hushed tones. Daenerys glances Jon's way and smiles, but otherwise the two don't acknowledge him.

Jon tries to take up his position near the intricate iron gate separating this garden from the street outside. But he's not halfway across the garden when Rheago chimes in again, hopping clumsily up and down.

"Mando!"

Pausing, Jon looks at Rheago, unsure. 

"I think he wants you, Mandalorian."

Jon turns at the sound of Daenerys' voice. She looks amused.

With a put upon sigh he doesn't mean, Jon changes his trajectory. Rheago giggles and disappears behind some palm fronds.

"And what are you up to this morning, womp rat?" Jon asks, unable to keep the fondness from his tone. If Daenerys takes offense to the name, she makes no remark. She's undoubtedly heard him use it before - either she thinks it's tolerable, funny, or doesn't know what a womp rat actually is. He wouldn't wager on her ignorance.

Rhaego's giggles are muffled by the thick leaves. Jon crouches down, and waits. He is definitely more patient than a toddler.

Jon isn't disappointed - Rheago emerges from the plants in short order. There's a lizard cupped in his little hands, a little thing with dark orange scales. It flicks its tongue.

"How do you keep finding these things?" Jon asks, exasperated. "Put it back."

"No!" Rheago crows, using his favorite word in Basic, and he takes off toward his mother at a run.

Jon climbs back to his feet and watches Daenerys receive the lizard from her son. "That's... Nice," she hedges. She shoots Jon a helpless look, and Missandei looks like she's trying not to laugh.

Jon takes up his usual post, then, where he can see both the entrance to the gardens from outside and the palace. He spends most of the morning watching Rhaego alternatively bring him or his mother unwanted objects from around the garden, before he finally tires himself out and sits at the edge of the pool with his feet in the water.

It’s then that Jon hears the characteristic whine of a grenade. 

“Get down!” he shouts, already running. He clears the span from his post to Rheago in an instant. In the readouts from his tactical screen, he can see the Unsullied responding too, just a beat behind him. When the grenade goes off, he’s already wrapped himself around the child, and the Unsullied have activated a temporary blast shield around Daenerys. Jon needs to get one of those. 

Heat from the explosion burns the back of his neck. Sharp pain radiates from his left elbow, where shrapnel found its way through the gaps in the beskar plates. His ears are ringing, but Jon can tell Rheago is crying by the way the child’s face is contorted. Stalwart Shield is before him suddenly, offering to take the child, and Jon extricates himself from the boy and passes him off. Hefting his shield in his other hand, the Unsullied turns and runs. 

When Jon glances their way, he sees that Daenerys and Missandei are already being ushered away by the other guards. He sees the fear painted on Daenerys’ face as she looks frantically for her son. 

A hole is gaping in one of the garden walls, now, one from an adjacent garden. It isn’t difficult to figure out what’s happening. Even if there had been a lull in the chase, there are still bounty hunters out to capture Rheago. 

Jon wonders what the hunters have done to the Unsullied stationed in the adjacent garden, but it’s impossible to see through the ash and dust rising from the flames caused by the explosion. Fire eats up the greenery of the garden hungrily, jumping from tree to tree. 

All at once, a masked hunter is lunging out of the rubble at Jon. Without a thought, Jon whips out his arm and activates his vambrace - a gout of flame erupts from the end, catching the hunter full in the face.

Jon sees three other masked figures who had slipped past him engaged with the Unsullied, who were standing in a tight semi-circle around the door into the palace. Jon decides to trust that they can deal with it, because he sees three more hunters charging through the front gate. Clearly, this group had decided storming together and fighting out who would get the bounty later would be the best move. An alarming thought, a bounty high enough to get hunters to work together, even grudgingly. 

On his tactical display, Jon can see two others creeping their way through the rubble of the explosion, trying to get the drop on him. 

Jon is glad that he’d taken some of his extra funds to re-armor himself after entering Daenerys’ employ; he adjusts his vambrace, and this time when he flings his arm out the whistling birds erupt rather than fire. They appear as tiny rockets, and though Jon can’t hear them over the ringing in his ears, he knows they’re shrill. They spiral through the air and rip through the three hunters near the gate. 

Jon whips around and extends the grappling line from the other vambrace. It twists around one of the hunters trying to take him by surprise and he yanks his hand back to drag them forward. At the same time, he pulls one of his blasters from its holster and takes aim at the other hunter. They try to duck behind one of the trees, but Jon pulls the trigger faster and they’re on the ground once the bright red bolt finds them. Jon turns the blaster on the hunter tangled with his grappling line and shoots again. 

He’s just about to wheel around and see if the Unsullied require any assistance, when the warning system in his helmet flashes red. He glances up. Another grenade is whistling through the air. He lifts his blaster and shoots at it twice - the first shot goes wide, but the second meets its mark. The grenade bursts in midair like a firework, and a flash of white light obscures Jon’s vision for a moment. When he can see again, he blanches. Another grenade is falling from the sky, and it’s heading straight for him. He raises the blaster again, but he doesn’t need the blinking red message on his display to tell him that it’s already too damn close. Still, it’s better than nothing. 

He pulls the trigger, and is thrown backwards into the dirt and into darkness. 

When he comes to, with black still spotting his swimming vision, Daenerys is leaning over him and her hands are at the base of his helmet. Panic sparking down his spine, Jon fumbles with stiff limbs and reaches up to grab her wrists and pull her hands away. 

"No!" Jon wheezes, "No, you can't... I can't..."

"Mando, please," Daenerys says, a desperate edge in her voice. Behind her, Jon thinks he hears one of the Unsullied insisting that she move, but everything is hazy. Daenerys is a bright spot in his fading vision.

"No... no one can take it off... Nothing living's allowed to see..." Even he can tell that the words are slurring. Shaping them is sapping the last bit of energy he has. Daenerys turns away for a moment, saying something about droids to one of the guards hovering behind her. He hears running footsteps.

"Jon," he says in a whisper, wanting her to know.

"What?" she asks, either not hearing or not understanding. She leans closer to him, some of her silver braids swinging loose from where they’d been tied back. He still has his gloved hands wrapped around her wrists, stopping her hands from moving closer to the helmet. Not that she's trying, anymore. Jon is certain that he wouldn't have the physical strength to resist her. 

"My name," he continues. "It's Jon Snow."

"Why are you - Mando. Jon. Jon, please -"

He knows no more.

*

Part of him hadn't expected to wake up again. The other part of him regrets doing it. Jon groans, blinking the darkness from his eyes. He's dully relieved that he's seeing the inside of his helmet, but the light filtering through the visor is enough to make him squeeze his eyes shut again.

"Are you awake, Jon?"

"Yes," Jon answers without thinking. Then, surprise and panic shoot through him, as he realizes he’s just heard his own name for the first time in… He’s not entirely sure how long. He squints his eyes open, rolls his head to the side. Daenerys is there, sitting beside him. Any ash from the explosion had already been cleaned from her skin, but her is hanging loose over her shoulders.

“S’there anyone else in here?” He asks, with effort. 

“Rheago,” she says. “He’s… asleep.” That answer sounds surprisingly uncertain. The line of questioning Jon wants to pursue is derailed, suddenly, by his concern. 

“Asleep? He’s okay?” 

“I think so… He - well, when you… You passed out. You remember?” 

Jon remembers, in a jumbled sort of way, explosions and fire and blaster bolts. The way his head throbs makes him believe he passed out, alright. “More or less.” 

“You were dying,” Daenerys says, sounding angry suddenly. “And you wouldn’t let me help you.” 

“If we let others remove our helmets - if we show our faces to someone outside of the clan… Then we aren’t Mandalorian anymore.” 

“But you’d be -”

“Please,” Jon interrupts, not nearly awake enough to debate philosophy. “What happened?” 

Daenerys purses her lips, but continues. “I sent White Rat to find a medical droid. Rheago managed to get away from Stalwart Shield and run back into the garden -” she keeps talking over Jon’s distressed noise, “ - and before any of us could do anything, he was just… putting his hand against your neck. He closed his eyes, and just…” She gestures with her hands, at a loss for how to explain.

“When the medical droid arrived, the worst of your wounds had already been healed.”

Jon swallows hard, rolling his head back so he’s looking at the ceiling instead of Daenerys’s face. “How is that possible?” 

For a long moment, Daenerys is silent. Then she says, slowly, “I’ve been known to do… impossible things. I’m not just a good pilot. I always seem to know exactly where I need to be. And… I’m called the Unburnt for a reason. I’ve walked through fire.” 

“You think Rheago can walk through fire?”

“It’s possible he could,” When Jon looks at her, Daenerys looks torn between alarm and pride. “I hope I never find out if he can do that or not… but perhaps it is something he has inherited. The blood of the dragon.” 

There’s silence for a moment, and Jon lets his eyes slip shut again. His head still pounds, but it’s dulled somewhat when the light is no longer drilling into him. He hears Daenerys shift in her chair. 

“He did something unusual, when I was first bringing him to you,” Jon says. He takes a steadying breath, and explains as briefly as possible the incident at the fuel station where Rheago had managed to stop blaster fire, voice getting more hoarse with every word.

“Why didn’t you tell me that before?” Daenerys sounds like she’s considering being angry, but Jon doesn’t open his eyes to check. 

“Didn’t want to sound crazy,” Jon says. She huffs. 

“I’ll let you rest now, Jon. And drink. There’s a glass on the table next to you.” 

She stands then, and there’s a rustle of shifting fabric as she stoops to gently pick up her son. 

“Please don’t call me by my name when there are others around,” Jon says, voice sounding overloud in the quiet of his room. 

“Is that a Mandalorian thing, too?” 

“Yes.” 

“I’ll do as you say,” Daenerys says, after a long moment. “And thank you, Jon. For saving my son. Again.”

+++

He remembers this: A dark so deep that Jon can only see with the help of his helmet, and the woman with him can surely see nothing at all. Ygritte had been the one to lead him, at first, gap-toothed smile wide. But now it is he that leads her, her rough fingers looped around his gloved hand. They come quickly to a point where there are natural stone ledges that can serve as seats, and he can hear the gentle bubble and hiss of the promised hot springs. 

Normally, he assumes there would be a lantern. But now… 

“Have you ever taken that helmet off around someone else, Mando?”

“Not for years,” he answers honestly. 

“Not since you were a boy, then.” She sounds amused. “Ever kissed a girl, Mando? Ever fucked one?” 

He… chooses not to answer. The silence speaks for him. 

“Thought not,” she says, sounding smug. She looks blue and muted in the struggling night vision of his helmet. 

There’s a long silence, and when he doesn’t move, Ygritte steps up close to him. She runs her hands from her shoulders down, traveling over his beat-up armor. Eventually, her hands find the collar of his shirt, peeking out from underneath the chestplate. Then, he feels cold fingers on the bare skin of his neck, and hands on edges of his helmet. Jon reaches up to hold her wrists, gently pushing her hands down. 

“Well?” Ygritte asks, tone somewhere between amused and impatient. Jon swallows thickly, thinking. There was no way she would be able to see his face, so… He reached up, depressing the buttons on the bottom of the helmet to disengage it, and lifting up. He kneels and carefully sets the helmet aside, away from the steaming spring so it can’t get knocked into the water. Jon is plunged into darkness without the aid of the HUD, but he can feel the ghost of Ygritte’s warmth as she steps closer to him once more. 

Ygritte crouches beside him, hands running over his face and into his tied-back curls. Jon can hear the smirk in her voice. “Yeah… I can work with this, pretty boy.” She leans further into his face, until they are breathing the same air. 

“What are you waiting for?” Jon asks, almost embarrassed by how breathless he sounds. 

“Nothing,” Ygritte says. “Just wishin’ I could see you blush. Now,” she says, right up against his ear, “I’ll show you how you go about treatin’ a woman right.” 

She leans closer to him, and for a moment Jon leans back. She makes a quizzical noise. Jon swallows again, then says, “Jon Snow.” 

“What?”

“My na -” 

She cuts him off with her lips on his. 

*

Later, much later, on the surface of her snowy planet… A blaster wound smolders on her chest, and she is clutched in his arms. Her voice is just a whisper, so soft he would never have picked it up without the aid of his helmet: “We never should have left that cave, Jon Snow.”

+++

They sit across from each other, him and Daenerys. Between them is a low table, and they're both sitting on pillows on the floor. Jon is stripped down to the light, soft black clothing he wears beneath his armor and blast-proof fabric. For the first time in a long time, it feels almost strange to still have the helmet on.

Daenerys sips sweet Meereenese wine. The candles on the table bathe them both in soft golden light. He can hear the breeze rustling palm leaves through the open doors to the balcony. Outside the stars are bright in the inky sky.

They talk of everything and nothing at all. Antics that Rhaego had gotten up to, Missandei and Grey Worm's budding romance. His childhood, before and after the Separatists. Jon doesn't think he's ever spoken so candidly about his past with anyone. Daenerys shares as well, speaking matter-of-factly about a childhood on the run from hunters like himself, a tale that makes him feel distantly guilty. She tells him of being sold by her brother. She tells him of Drogo, and how she won the khalasar - how she won all of the Dothraki over with her skill. Then, the assassination of her husband, the disappearance of her son, and her bloody crusade to liberate the Essosi system. The stories he had heard of the Dragon Queen and her conquests are nothing compared to the tale Daenerys tells. 

She finishes her wine, licking the red stain on her lips, and Jon swallows hard. Daenerys must have noticed, because she smiles, shifts around the table until she's inches from him. He wonders what she smells like - if she's wearing perfume, the filters in his helmet aren't letting the scent through.

"Tell me, Jon Snow," she says, her bare fingers weaving through his gloved ones. "How do Mandalorians kiss?"

His lips twist into a humorless smile. “Like most other people,” he says, “Though sometimes like this.” He leans forward, closing the distance between them, so their foreheads touch - her bare skin against the beskar of his helmet. She pulls back slightly after a moment, a soft smile on her face. Daenerys’ eyes flit over the lines and contours of the helmet, studying it as if she could see his expression.

"Have you kissed someone before, on the lips?" she asks, in a whisper. She’s still close enough that her breath is surely fogging the glossy finish of his helmet.

"Yes," he says, just as quietly.

"In the dark?"

"Yes."

"Would you kiss me like that, Jon?"

"... Yes."

Her smile could have lit the sky. Instead, she turns and leans over the table, gently blowing out the candles. They are left in semi-darkness, the light of the moons and stars still coming in through the windows.

Before Jon can say anything, Daenerys squeezes his hands and stands. He feels ridiculously bereft as she walks away, somehow already missing the warmth of her. Her dress is fashioned from a billowy blue fabric, and it trails after her as she strides to the window. Her hands pull at the golden ties of the curtains until the thick fabric falls and the room is thrown into complete darkness. She turns back toward him.

"How is that?"

"It's -" He wants to say that it's perfect, because it is. But he finds he cannot lie to this woman. There is a part of him that thinks that all of this is not fair to her. Instead he stands, and goes to her. He’s sure she would be able to navigate the room in the dark back to him, but he is the one with night vision right now. Jon goes to her and takes her hand, watching her smile into the dark. 

"Daenerys, I - you have to know, that I -"

She shakes her head, and lifts her free hand to the side of his helmet, as if she were cupping his cheek. "Shh. I understand."

"Do you?"

"I understand what me seeing your face would mean. You wouldn't be Mandalorian anymore."

He breathes out sharply. "That's - true. Unless - unless..."

"Unless I was a part of your clan."

"How do you - ?"

Even in the gray image produced by his tactical display's night vision, he can see her flush. "You said as much yourself. And I've been doing some... Research. Trying to understand."

He's strangely touched by this. He opens his mouth, trying to think of something to say. Closes it again. Daenerys can't see him floundering, but she seems to sense it anyway.

"And I only learned your name a few weeks ago. I can't say I know everything about your culture, but I know that it's too soon... So please. Kiss me, like this. If you... If you want to."

For the first time, Daenerys sounds less than confident. That's absurd, because Jon can't imagine there's any man on this planet who wouldn't kiss her if she asked. But she's asking him, so...

Gently, Jon leads her back over to the table, and sits on the cushion he’d been occupying before. Daenerys kneels next to him, still holding his hand. 

Jon lifts his hands to either side of his helmet and lifts. The helmet comes off with a hiss, and he brings it over his head. He blinks for a moment, adjusting to the full darkness. Then he sets his helmet on the floor beside him.

"Can I...?" Daenerys asks. He hears a rustle of fabric, senses movement near his face.

"Yes," Jon says, catching her meaning. Her hand really does cup his cheek, this time. Her skin is soft, and Jon leans into her touch. She moves her hand, then, feeling the shape of his nose, his lips. Daenerys reaches up to his hair. When she finds the tie holding back his curls, she tugs it loose and runs her hands through it. Jon bites the inside of his mouth to suppress a groan. No one has touched him like this in years.

"Come here," he says, reaching and wrapping his arms around her. The silk of her dress is smooth under his fingertips. He hardly has to pull at all to move her closer - she settles herself in his lap, and leans closer until they’re sharing a breath.

Jon is content with staying there for a moment, taking in the sweet smell of her, feeling the texture of her braids and the weight of her against him. She seems similarly engaged, running her fingers down his chest, likely feeling the scars through his shirt.

Eventually, he leans forward, and she pauses in her exploration.

"You're sure?" she asks, and he can feel her breath against his lips. He hums his agreement - this is not more monumental than taking off the helmet, and he expects he'll enjoy it more.

He captures her lips in a kiss, then, and it's the sweetest thing he's ever tasted. Daenerys' fingers tighten in his hair, and smiles against his lips. When they break apart, both of them are breathless.

"Have you been with a woman before?" Daenerys asks, and he can hear the balance of humor and heat in her voice.

"Yes," he says, and then he turns them around so he's leaning over her. "Let me show you what I know."

*

And later, but not much later, a voice in the dark: “I love you, you know.” 

“I know.”


End file.
